I've done some external research and read almost all the posts provided by @Steve Babiak, @Rich Weese (& others) and I see a LOT of opportunities for things to go very wrong (eg.

A couple of issues:1) Condo financing is very dependant on external factors, namely the condo association and/or management company.

If you were to heavily insulate the inside wall of an old double/triple wythe brick building the external wythe may no longer dry out thoroughly and be subject to excessive freeze - thaw damage.The best way to insulate old brick buildings is from the outside - which has the added advantage of turning all that brick into a thermal mass in the conditioned space ... alas, most owners of old brick buildings are unwilling or unable (due to historic designations) to insulate over the external brick.There are some informative studies and papers by John Lstiburek and the folks at Building Sciences Corporation about dealing with old brick buildings.

Some counties also have external GIS data that you can use through other mapping software if you have access or through arcgis.com which allows free access for basic web mapping applications to the public.  

To become a full-time IRA investor while relying on the IRA for income is in direct contradiction with this intent, assuming that the investor is not yet taking retirement distributions, and so I don't see how that would be possible without some external source of income.

Maybe you could still get a nice roof deck using the "traditional" layout of living at ground floor and beds on second with an internal stair through the bedroom level and up as well as an external spiral stair from an outdoor patio.

Account ClosedFocus on making money first.When you're making good money, get a good tax CPA/EA on your team as an external partner to mitigate your tax burden and plan.If you don't own any rental properties and haven't done a single flip you shouldn't be thinking about LLCs and S Corps...My two cents.Get that train moving before you start thinking about what color to paint it.

Instead, you need to see the overlooked opportunities that are all around you and act on the vast sums of untapped income and unclaimed success just waiting to be harnessed.You probably spend too little time studying the most successful, innovative and profitable ideas people in other industries use to grow and prosper.Yet, if you start focusing on other industry’s success practices, you’ll be amazed at how easily you can adapt these ideas to your own business situation.Suddenly, you’ll see significantly better ways to produce significantly better results from the same time, manpower, effort, activity, and capital.Vision isn't easy.As a result, most people let the opportunity of a lifetime slip through their fingers & live to regret it; but in this case I could make it easy for you to Not let this one slip away so that you can take advantage of this unique opportunity with zero risk.Instead, you need to see the overlooked opportunities that are all around you and act on the vast sums of untapped income and unclaimed success just waiting to be harnessed.In a recessionary economy like this, some 30 million people could be out of work -- they lost their jobs, got put on shortened work week.Millions will be (or are, right now) aggressively looking for business opportunities they can purchase or start.Though most of them don't have a lot of cash to invest, they still need income, they need work, they need productive activity that makes them money and keeps them feeling worthwhile.I believe there’s not one business owner or startup I’ve ever met in North America (and probably the world) who couldn’t, who shouldn’t broaden their perspective and think about how to grow yourself a small or large business empire.And that can mean nothing more than multiplying the size of your current business many times through external leveraged buyout acquisition activities.Or it can mean multiplying it through a roll up. 

The only way to avoid an internal fitting is to use the very expensive SharkBite style external fittings.

Rik, There are great ways to add value to a unit that will lead to higher rents, external storage for an additional monthly charge or not including appliances as part of the rent and rent them for a monthly charge, really being creative with your investments and letting people ala carte their individual rental experience.